“If you have the opportunity to take one of Amanda’s workshops, I highly recommend that you do so. This fresh, talented artist is a sensitive, committed teacher, who gives 100% to her students. Although I have been a professional artist for years, Amanda’s approach to abstract landscape has activated my art process.” -Karen Cain, BC

Now booking 2019 and 2020 private and public workshops. Please email for rate and availability.

Nature in the Abstract

Students will explore different ways to express the landscape and other natural elements in an abstract manner. Reference imagery will be used at a minimum in order to induce a deeper degree of abstraction. This concept will be explored through non-traditional drawing exercises, color studies, miniature paintings and a larger more involved painting on canvas.

Essence of Place

An introduction to traditional landscape painting with an emphasis on expressive color and gestural mark. Students will closely study their reference photo and define the subtle qualities of their determined place. We will capture the essence of the site through traditional drawing, color studies and a larger, more involved painting. We will look closely at the work of Edward Hopper, Richard Diebenkorn, and Raimonds Staprans.

Methods In Abstraction

An introduction to thinking, drawing and painting in an abstract manner. Pulling cues from reality, we will use the still life as input for abstraction. Students will explore mark marking techniques, build color palettes, and trick their minds in thinking differently through a series of non-traditional drawing and painting exercises. The result will be a series of non-objective paintings that highlight color relationship and mark making. We will study the work of Henri Matisse, David Hockney, and Robert Motherwell.

Statement

Painting and hiking both culminate in a meditative experience. The terrain is never honestly portrayed on a map, the distance is always a little longer, and the trail is always steeper than my expectation. The alpine zone is an earned landscape, as are my paintings.

My landscape paintings push the timeless formal qualities of the genre into a contemporary context. The paintings experiment with shifting ground planes, reduced into shapes and values, and rebuilt with layers of reactive mark-making. The history of mark is celebrated through unexpected pops of colors and awkward negative spaces. My paintings reference memories, both printed photographs and mental imagery, resulting in emotionally-charged reflections of my past experiences.